5 ms·

Body-editing apps on TikTok ‘trigger eating disorders’

18 points by mikesabbagh 6y ago

bdcravens 6y ago
Aside from being an app feature, how is different from things like alcohol and sexualized content, which can also trigger those who struggle with those issues?
- conradludgate 6y ago
  My main thought is that those two things have lots of regulation and warnings around them. Body shaping images do not. I do have a small belief that these apps should not be allowed to be advertised, although I'm not sure where the line is. I've dealt with eating disorders myself and with friends so I'm definitely on the side of trying to reduce the effects
airhead969 6y ago
No offense to sufferers of eating disorders, but I'd like an eating disorder where I lose 40 lbs. / 18 kg. but then plateau right there. Can TikTok help me acquire just the right amount of body dysmorphia? Poe's law disclaimer: the joke is about TikTok triggering eating disorders, not eating disorders themselves. :eye roll emoji:
- DC1350 6y ago
  Sometimes I wonder if the positive social consequences of having an eating disorder can actually make up for bad health outcomes. Good looking people are always treated a lot better, and mildly underweight looks a lot better than a little bit chubby. The “right amount of body dysmorphia” is a fun thing to think about since it’s hard to know if you’re crazy, or everyone else is, when you live somewhere that “normal” is actually pretty overweight and nobody acts like there’s a problem.
  - jtsiskin 6y ago
    I think you’re just thinking about fitness and healthy living/eating. Throwing up every time you eat more than you “should” have, hating yourself for finishing your plate, constantly feeling hungry, constantly hating how you feel in your own body - these aren’t good.
    - Google234 6y ago
      I wonder how the negative effects of stress would balance with the positive effects of caloric restrictions on life expectancy.
      - krageon 6y ago
        https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18612251/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18612251/ Eating disorders are not good for your life expectancy. From the study: "For example, statistically, a woman who has had AN since 15 years of age is likely to live 25 years less than predicted for the normal population."
    - DC1350 6y ago
      No, I'm thinking about the more mild forms of disordered eating like a constant fear of gaining weight and feeling guilty about eating. Anyone who has a sedentary lifestyle needs to be pretty neurotic about food to maintain low body fat. Is a little bit underweight really that bad?
- stevewodil 6y ago
  If you want to lose weight you just need to eat in a calorie deficit, not trigger an eating disorder. Your comment is extremely insensitive to those who actually struggle with eating disorders. It's a mathematical equation to lose weight
tjs8rj 6y ago
I wonder why this is such a prominent focus on our society. I was watching Gothika the other day, and at one point Halle Berry walks into a public shower nude and my partner’s immediate reaction was “wow Halle Berry and her unrealistic body”. That’s a person’s body, they look like that. There isn’t anything “unrealistic” about it. The vast majority of humans outside of health conditions could achieve a similar level of lean. In fact, just a few decades ago obesity was a small fraction of the population, and even being overweight was a fraction of what it is now. With models, they are “unrealistic”, with brilliant minds the suggestion is that anyone is capable of it, that hard work and the right conditions could make anyone a scientist. Why are we so insecure about our bodies but so confident in our minds, when it’s actually far more unrealistic that everyone could be a scientist compared to everyone being as lean as the average model? I suspect it’s no more harmful, intrinsically, to see “unrealistic intelligence standards” than it is to see “unrealistic body standards”, we just have a culture where growing your mind requiring hard work and sacrifice is ok, but improving your body requiring hard work and sacrifice is wrong
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  Actors and actresses and models do maintain very expensive regimes (with things most people cannot afford like a dedicated fitness trainer or nutritionist, let alone a team) that can be unhealthy to do in and of themselves. Most male actors have talked about how punishing their regimes are , like Christian Bale rapidly gaining and losing weight: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2465697/christian-bale-admits-he-has-to-stop-changing-his-weight-so-much-for-roles https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2465697/christian-bale-admi... Diet/body image also have a massive industry pushing dodgy easy methods to consumers willing to spend. Anorexia and bulimia were glamorized with celebrities publicizing their 1200 calorie diets. Fen-phen, a weight loss drug, was the most costly recall of a drug ever with over $14B awarded in liability suits. People are unhealthy, yes, but the media and entertainment do not have a great track record of pushing actually healthy habits.
  - MikeUt 6y ago
    > Most male actors have talked about how punishing their regimes are , like Christian Bale rapidly gaining and losing weight Note the term "rapidly". I think it would be far easier if you had, for example, a decade to reach your target. For example by eating healthy and exercising since childhood.
twright 6y ago
This is one of the more unsympathetic and arm-chairy threads on HN I’ve seen in a while. It would appear that no one here has had an experience, tangential or otherwise, with eating disorders and are hypothesizing on it like some article on arxiv. A relative of mine has had an eating disorder their entire life, they look like a walking skeleton. In grad-school one year I went from 160 to 130 pounds because eating regular meals was often “inconvenient”, I’m 6’2”. To respond to comments here: Eating disorders are different from alcohol and substance abuse because no one expects you to do those things. The way women are expected to look in society is unrealistic in addition to all other things society demands of them. People in movies look that good because they are paid a lot of money to do so. Men, try to get a body like any of the Avengers and you will go mad. The process involves weeks to months of bulking up and then days of dehydration and food abstinence before a shoot. A weight lifting friend talks about how an average joe could out-lift any of them on shoot days. There is no advantage to an eating disorder. It’s miserable and makes anything with your friends around food awkward. Escaping an eating disorder is difficult because undertaking one fundamentally rewires your brain, it took a summer and the help of my partner for me to come to grips that yes, I do need to eat more. The proceeding year I had to very actively focus on eating regularly and I felt so much better and actually performed better academically because of it. Finally the article: TikTok should remove the body altering filters. Young people see images of digitally skinny people and don’t recognize it’s a filter and think that’s how they should look. They will do this in vain and in the supreme detriment to their health mentally and physically. Both platforms should ban ads on diets or weight-loss supplements. If you’d like to learn more, and stop Dunning-Kruger’ing yourself into oblivion, go on down to /r/EatingDisorders or listen to any episode of the podcast Maintenance Phase.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
If only we could trigger a “movement disorder“ If people walked close to 10 miles a day like they did in the past, there is a much smaller likelihood that over half of America would be obese.
- fakedang 6y ago
  So you're asking for a Forrest Gump?
o_p 6y ago
Fatties are a much bigger health problem than eating disorders, rather stop thinking that a normal human body is a "unrealistic" one. Way to go america!

18 points by mikesabbagh 6y ago

Aside from being an app feature, how is different from things like alcohol and sexualized content, which can also trigger those who struggle with those issues?

conradludgate 6y ago
My main thought is that those two things have lots of regulation and warnings around them. Body shaping images do not. I do have a small belief that these apps should not be allowed to be advertised, although I'm not sure where the line is. I've dealt with eating disorders myself and with friends so I'm definitely on the side of trying to reduce the effects

airhead969 6y ago

No offense to sufferers of eating disorders, but I'd like an eating disorder where I lose 40 lbs. / 18 kg. but then plateau right there. Can TikTok help me acquire just the right amount of body dysmorphia? Poe's law disclaimer: the joke is about TikTok triggering eating disorders, not eating disorders themselves. :eye roll emoji:

DC1350 6y ago
Sometimes I wonder if the positive social consequences of having an eating disorder can actually make up for bad health outcomes. Good looking people are always treated a lot better, and mildly underweight looks a lot better than a little bit chubby. The “right amount of body dysmorphia” is a fun thing to think about since it’s hard to know if you’re crazy, or everyone else is, when you live somewhere that “normal” is actually pretty overweight and nobody acts like there’s a problem.
- jtsiskin 6y ago
  I think you’re just thinking about fitness and healthy living/eating. Throwing up every time you eat more than you “should” have, hating yourself for finishing your plate, constantly feeling hungry, constantly hating how you feel in your own body - these aren’t good.
  - Google234 6y ago
    I wonder how the negative effects of stress would balance with the positive effects of caloric restrictions on life expectancy.
    - krageon 6y ago
      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18612251/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18612251/ Eating disorders are not good for your life expectancy. From the study: "For example, statistically, a woman who has had AN since 15 years of age is likely to live 25 years less than predicted for the normal population."
  - DC1350 6y ago
    No, I'm thinking about the more mild forms of disordered eating like a constant fear of gaining weight and feeling guilty about eating. Anyone who has a sedentary lifestyle needs to be pretty neurotic about food to maintain low body fat. Is a little bit underweight really that bad?
stevewodil 6y ago
If you want to lose weight you just need to eat in a calorie deficit, not trigger an eating disorder. Your comment is extremely insensitive to those who actually struggle with eating disorders. It's a mathematical equation to lose weight

tjs8rj 6y ago

I wonder why this is such a prominent focus on our society. I was watching Gothika the other day, and at one point Halle Berry walks into a public shower nude and my partner’s immediate reaction was “wow Halle Berry and her unrealistic body”. That’s a person’s body, they look like that. There isn’t anything “unrealistic” about it. The vast majority of humans outside of health conditions could achieve a similar level of lean. In fact, just a few decades ago obesity was a small fraction of the population, and even being overweight was a fraction of what it is now. With models, they are “unrealistic”, with brilliant minds the suggestion is that anyone is capable of it, that hard work and the right conditions could make anyone a scientist. Why are we so insecure about our bodies but so confident in our minds, when it’s actually far more unrealistic that everyone could be a scientist compared to everyone being as lean as the average model? I suspect it’s no more harmful, intrinsically, to see “unrealistic intelligence standards” than it is to see “unrealistic body standards”, we just have a culture where growing your mind requiring hard work and sacrifice is ok, but improving your body requiring hard work and sacrifice is wrong

bobthepanda 6y ago
Actors and actresses and models do maintain very expensive regimes (with things most people cannot afford like a dedicated fitness trainer or nutritionist, let alone a team) that can be unhealthy to do in and of themselves. Most male actors have talked about how punishing their regimes are , like Christian Bale rapidly gaining and losing weight: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2465697/christian-bale-admits-he-has-to-stop-changing-his-weight-so-much-for-roles https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2465697/christian-bale-admi... Diet/body image also have a massive industry pushing dodgy easy methods to consumers willing to spend. Anorexia and bulimia were glamorized with celebrities publicizing their 1200 calorie diets. Fen-phen, a weight loss drug, was the most costly recall of a drug ever with over $14B awarded in liability suits. People are unhealthy, yes, but the media and entertainment do not have a great track record of pushing actually healthy habits.
- MikeUt 6y ago
  > Most male actors have talked about how punishing their regimes are , like Christian Bale rapidly gaining and losing weight Note the term "rapidly". I think it would be far easier if you had, for example, a decade to reach your target. For example by eating healthy and exercising since childhood.

twright 6y ago

This is one of the more unsympathetic and arm-chairy threads on HN I’ve seen in a while. It would appear that no one here has had an experience, tangential or otherwise, with eating disorders and are hypothesizing on it like some article on arxiv. A relative of mine has had an eating disorder their entire life, they look like a walking skeleton. In grad-school one year I went from 160 to 130 pounds because eating regular meals was often “inconvenient”, I’m 6’2”. To respond to comments here: Eating disorders are different from alcohol and substance abuse because no one expects you to do those things. The way women are expected to look in society is unrealistic in addition to all other things society demands of them. People in movies look that good because they are paid a lot of money to do so. Men, try to get a body like any of the Avengers and you will go mad. The process involves weeks to months of bulking up and then days of dehydration and food abstinence before a shoot. A weight lifting friend talks about how an average joe could out-lift any of them on shoot days. There is no advantage to an eating disorder. It’s miserable and makes anything with your friends around food awkward. Escaping an eating disorder is difficult because undertaking one fundamentally rewires your brain, it took a summer and the help of my partner for me to come to grips that yes, I do need to eat more. The proceeding year I had to very actively focus on eating regularly and I felt so much better and actually performed better academically because of it. Finally the article: TikTok should remove the body altering filters. Young people see images of digitally skinny people and don’t recognize it’s a filter and think that’s how they should look. They will do this in vain and in the supreme detriment to their health mentally and physically. Both platforms should ban ads on diets or weight-loss supplements. If you’d like to learn more, and stop Dunning-Kruger’ing yourself into oblivion, go on down to /r/EatingDisorders or listen to any episode of the podcast Maintenance Phase.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

If only we could trigger a “movement disorder“ If people walked close to 10 miles a day like they did in the past, there is a much smaller likelihood that over half of America would be obese.

fakedang 6y ago
So you're asking for a Forrest Gump?

o_p 6y ago

Fatties are a much bigger health problem than eating disorders, rather stop thinking that a normal human body is a "unrealistic" one. Way to go america!